One mans personal opinion on the draft

[Tatonka]

i know there has been lots of debate on how we used our day one picks.. it is easy to make a knee jerk reaction.. and i am one of the people (big surprise, i know) that could feel the steam coming out of my ears when i saw we took a wr..

i will say this.. from this draft.. i think we can assume a few things..

1. mularkey obviously wants to use more wrs... it will be disappointing to see one of them cut, but we may actually keep six.. moulds, evans, reed, aikens, parrish, smith.. i hope that is the case.. they all bring something a little different.. i am not upset that we drafted parrish.. i just wish it could have been later.. but he may not have been there.. it is tough right now to get excited about his size.. there are very very few wrs that are his size that can play in the nfl.. people mentioned marvin harrison comparisons.. but harrison is 6' tall.. not 5'9.. i hope he can bring something to the team.. my immediate reaction was obviously major disappointment.. simply based on what we heard from TD himself.. we all expected some help at the LT spot.. but Adam Terry was really the only guy there, and TD also said in his press confrence later, that they just didnt have him rated that high... but on parrish, he has never put up big numbers in his career and most reports say that he is basically a career 3rd wr/slot guy.. so a 2nd seems high for that type of player.. i still hope he does well and makes some plays for us.. but my immediate response is major disappointment in this pick.

2. the two TEs we have may not be on schedule.. we took a te on day one.. which alot of mocks had us doing. i do like everett and he was pretty consistently rated the 3rd best TE in the draft.. i guess i was much more prepaired for this pick.. i thought that alex smith may be our second round pick.. so it is not like this pick was out of left field.. i have seen Everett play against virginia tech, which is a good defense, and he ate us up before we hurt his shoulder. Everett reminds me of randy mcmichael..

3. we still dont have an answer at LT.. my thoughts are that they must be ramping up to have teague or gandy fight it out.. which is far from ideal.. i do also think that LJ Shelton will be cut.. they drafted Elton Brown, and while i know he is a guard, i just cant see them keeping a 3 million dollar back up.. so we may still get shelton.. that really is our only option right now.. if teague ends up out there.. i will say this.. he has definately improved every year he has been here.. so while many will point to his stats from being a LT in denver (myself included).. he has had time with mcnally now, and is a compitent center.. if mcnally feels he can make it at LT, then fine.. but he will be a FA next year.. so we still dont have an answer at LT for the long term.. which is not a spot that i like to see alot of constant change.

4. the two lineman we drafted look like they are solid players.. OTCdraft.com has them both listed as guards, numbers 11 and 13 respectively, with scott young sandwiched between.. but i have confidence that they will be contributors.. they are both very large guys.. i just dont understand going for another G.. when our need is LT.. but you can never have too many lineman.. i also dont think there is any way that Bannan makes this team as a guard.. not with villareal, gandy, anderson, tucker, and the two new guys who can play guard.. Bannan is F'ed.

5. it is a shame that we couldnt move henry.. hopefully something will still happen.. and maybe we can get a player for player trade.. but i am not holding out hope any longer.. hopefully henry wont be a and will play and help the team make the playoffs this year. i love the gates pick.. i have seen probably in the range of 5-6 of his games in the past couple years, and he was always a strong player that was fun to watch.

6. TD obviously thinks that Edwards and Anderson are more than capable of replacing pat williams.. i agree.. i guess they also think that kelsay and schobel are capable starters and since they are both locked up for a while.. no need to go get a new DE... i also agree.

there are still some things that are up in the air.. but i am content with what we got.. there are some guys that are UFA that could be nice pick ups like Shazor, Munoz, KayJay Harris, TA Mclendon, and the center from LSU (his name is slipping my mind right now).. all solid players that could have been drafted.. some of them fairly high..

those are my thoughts.. if anyone cares.. i will get off my soapbox now.

[Mr. Cynical]

I agree with pretty much everything you said. Good post.

[ArcticWildMan]

Spot on T. I agree 100%

[justasportsfan]

Good post


I think our FO thinks we have a decent team. Maybe they saw that Drew was the big problem that made our O look very limited.

I doubt they are looking to make Parrish a starter as a wr but I think they want him to grow as a punt returner as well since Clements might be gone next year.

I don't think they drafted for players that were gonna contribute right away but were looking for raw/promising players for future purposes.

[Romes]

Good post T.

just a note: Mularkey said that Bannan will be moving back to DT since they drafted 2 guards.

[ryjam282]

Great post. Nice to see you come around, after your day 1 post I thought you were gonna blow a gasket. I think it was a good draft. Not great but good. How they play can make it great so we will see.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

Excellent post. You said a lot of things that I not only agree with, but conveyed a lot of the same feelings that I have about this draft as well.

Just a couple of comments on some of the points that you raised:

Parrish was an extremely dangerous returner in college and can be used to protect Clements and McGee, who are essential to the success of our D, so he does bring something valuable to the table in that regard that adds to his value. That softens my disappointment some.

It may be a matter of semantics, but I see more of Bubba Franks in Everett than Randy McMichael, but, as you pointed out, this was a need pick and more than a few draft guides had us taking a TE--I prefer Everett over Joel Dreesen....

With Bannan moving back to DT, he may have a better chance to stick than as a O-lineman now.

And, for the rest, I pretty much share your thoughts and concerns.

Good job, T!

[John Doe]

i will say this.. from this draft.. i think we can assume a few things..

1. mularkey obviously wants to use more wrs... it will be disappointing to see one of them cut, but we may actually keep six.. moulds, evans, reed, aikens, parrish, smith.. i hope that is the case.. they all bring something a little different..

I did not see Smith bring anything special to the table last year. Barring injury to the other recievers, I see him getting cut.

[chernobylwraiths]

I did not see Smith bring anything special to the table last year. Barring injury to the other recievers, I see him getting cut.

I thought Smith was a decent punt returner last year.

[Dozerdog]

I did not see Smith bring anything special to the table last year. Barring injury to the other recievers, I see him getting cut.

I thought Smith was a decent punt returner last year.

One TD punt return vs NE and one returned to the 5 yard line vs the Rams. I'd keep him around if possible!

[Tatonka]

Excellent post. You said a lot of things that I not only agree with, but conveyed a lot of the same feelings that I have about this draft as well.

Just a couple of comments on some of the points that you raised:

Parrish was an extremely dangerous returner in college and can be used to protect Clements and McGee, who are essential to the success of our D, so he does bring something valuable to the table in that regard that adds to his value. That softens my disappointment some.

It may be a matter of semantics, but I see more of Bubba Franks in Everett than Randy McMichael, but, as you pointed out, this was a need pick and more than a few draft guides had us taking a TE--I prefer Everett over Joel Dreesen....

With Bannan moving back to DT, he may have a better chance to stick than as a O-lineman now.

And, for the rest, I pretty much share your thoughts and concerns.

Good job, T!

while i know he can take clements off of the punt returns.. that does not justify a 2nd round pick as of right now.. there were better kick returners in this draft that went much later.. if all we needed was a kick returner and a 3rd wr.. here are people that would have fit the bill other than parrish.. but my hope is that parrish can bring something very fun to watch to the passing game.. just please keep the mic away from marblemouth before, during, and after games..

about everett.. he is faster than franks i believe.. kiper said he challenged winslow to a foot race last year and beat him.. he is also built just like mcmichael.. that is where i was getting the comparison from.. i hope to god he is more dynamic than franks.. because franks is just a goal line target and rarely does anything else.. everett is suposed to be our new "down the field" target, per MM. i think he may be right... and i trust MM on tight ends.. regardless.. i still think euhus is going to be solid and much like remersma when he was here.. and campbell is no slouch.. he is our best blocking TE.. and people quickly forget the tough tough catches he made while bledsoe was hanging him out to dry.. christ, there was a like a 4 game stretch where bledsoe did everything he could to make sure campbell was actually killed on the field.. alot of guys would aligator arm the passes that campbell consistently catches.

in regards to Bannan.. i hadnt heard the press confrence before i wrote that.. so thanks for the update..

[Tatonka]

One TD punt return vs NE and one returned to the 5 yard line vs the Rams. I'd keep him around if possible!

yeah. i agree.. which is why i never understood why clements was doing that.. because smith did well enough to not risk clements i thought.

[Dozerdog]

yeah. i agree.. which is why i never understood why clements was doing that.. because smith did well enough to not risk clements i thought.

Then again Clements had a couple of great returns too.

in the end, i think MM wanted to ease the rookie in, no need for a rook to cough up the ball in all the wrong places. As it turned out, Clements had a costly fumble or two anyway.

[Tatonka]

i understand that clements did good.. but the risk of losing him and the huge effect that losing him could have on our team should have smith back there all along... and maybe smith could have had the same results as clements did on those specific runs.. maybe the blocking was great.. i dont know.

[jeffhcb]

Excellent post earlier. I had no idea that guys like Munoz, Wilkerson and Shazor were not picked. I went to Michigan and Shazor has lots of talent. He's still raw and a little inconsistent but very athletic with great size for a saftey. We should definitely try to grab him, particularly as we have almost no depth at safety and both Milloy (who should be cut for his dumbass comments about the Patriots) and Vincent are getting older.